Till Death Do Us Part
by Jane McBrennen
Summary: In season two, Angelus was released when Buffy and Angel had sex. Now he's free and roaming the cemeteries for new prey. What he finds is a girl trying to get herself killed by vampires. She interests him. Angelus/OC


_**Till Death Do Us Part**_

**Chapter One: Buffy**

* * *

Love is a strange and powerful thing. It can make you do things you never thought you would have the strength to do… like live, for instance. Living isn't quite as easy as it sounds, especially when you're living on a Hellmouth with a drunken, abusive father and vampires feeding in your favorite graveyards every night. Falling in love with one of those vampires was definitely not a part of any plan Betty Williams had made. Jump off a cliff? Sure. Get sucked dry by vampires? Sounds good to her. Get sucked into the Hellmouth? Absolutely. Pretty much anything but falling in love was on her list… especially with a vampire. As if love wasn't messy enough.

The point is, living was always kind of a temporary things for Betty. She had pretty much spent her whole life waiting for Death's scythe to come down on her and finally bring her some eternal peace away from the horrid life she'd been cursed to live. She would have done it herself if her mother hadn't made her swear not to before taking her own life. Selfish bitch. Even at eight Betty felt that she should have known what her junkie mom was up to when her mom made her make that ridiculous and highly inconvenient promise. Even so, Betty did love her mother, even if she cursed her for forcing that promise from her when even she knew that life wasn't worth living. So she kept the promise, the last thing her mother had asked of her. It was agonizingly tempting sometimes, especially when she was cutting and it would be so easy to just flick her wrist over the right vein and all her problems would be over. She never did though, triumphant over the fact that she had that much self-control.

Betty believed for a long time that nothing in the world could make life worth living, least of all love. This is how she found out she was wrong…

Waking up was often less difficult than going to sleep for Betty. The constant nagging thought that her father might enter her room in a drunken rage and tear her from her fitful sleep to beat her bloody was much more unpleasant than the idea of facing the hordes of small-minded, preppie students who could rarely manage to talk about anything other than football or Justin Timberlake's latest haircut, or at best, what to wear to the Bronze that night. Yet this morning she found getting dressed and ready for school a lot more difficult, probably because of the upcoming pep rally that afternoon that all students were _required_ to attend. The consequences of not going were a three-day suspension, and that was if you were on the principal's _good_ side. Betty was absolutely certain she never wanted to find out what that man's bad side looked like. Probably demonic, she mused.

Still, the idea of sitting for hours until her ass and mind were both numb, listening to all the school spirit crap that everyone would go on and on about was a painful prospect. She couldn't afford the suspension though. The asshole teachers had already given her far too many, almost all for things she didn't deserve. She'd be lucky if all she got off with was a suspension. Betty comforted herself with the thought that she could go to one of the many cemeteries in Sunnydale after sunset and search for someone to bring her miserable life to an end. It cheered her up significantly.

She managed to sneak out of her room without waking her father who was, as usual, in a drunken stupor that he wouldn't wake from until at least noon. Her stomach growled loudly as she walked toward the local high school, her head aching from hunger, as it so often did. She tried not to think about it and managed fairly well. She could always distract herself by thinking about cutting. That was fun.

She walked to school quickly, not wanting to be late. She was never late. She punched in her hours at school exactly, came and left exactly when she was supposed to, rarely ever missing a day. In fact, the only time she ever missed a day was when her father beat her into unconsciousness.

The throng of students buzzing about random crap was, as always, unsettling to her. People in general made her uncomfortable, mostly because she was afraid they were going to hit her. Living with her dad had done that to her. Not that she couldn't take a hit. She had taken enough beatings to know how to bounce back from a hit and come out swinging.

She pressed through the crowd and headed for class, listening to the students around her mindlessly.

"No idea what I'm going to wear to the Bronze tonight…"

"Did he really break up with you? What a jerk!"

"No, no, no, throw the ball like this…"

"I still haven't heard from Angel, Willow. I'm worried."

What kind of name was Angel? Betty listened to the blonde girl talking a little more carefully, following her at a safe distance. She was bored and she knew from seeing her before that the blonde – Buffy, she thought – was headed for the same class, English.

"I don't know, Buffy, maybe he's trying to be all mysterious again to protect you," a redhead with Buffy said. "You know how he gets."

"Yeah, but wouldn't he have at least said something? I mean, we've been really close lately. _Really_ close," Buffy said.

Betty was getting bored already. Angel was obviously just some stupid boy who hadn't called Buffy back. Stupid.

"He could be off hunting demons," the girl named Willow offered.

Whoa, demons? Like, vampires and crap? She had seen one feeding in her favorite graveyard once but how did they know about them? Surely they didn't hang around cemeteries. They didn't seem the type. But why would her boyfriend be hunting vampires?

"Yeah, I guess," Buffy said, not sounding convinced.

They arrived at the classroom and Betty was cut short on her eavesdropping. Bummer. Things were getting pretty interesting.

Betty took a seat in the English classroom, bracing herself for the pep rally later. It was all so much fun she almost didn't know what to do with herself.


End file.
